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Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to learn how faculty integrated content related to nursing research and advanced writing/oral communication into an undergraduate nursing research course.
Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to learn about the experiences/assignments used to evaluate student written and oral communication in an undergraduate nursing research course.
Methods: To become prepared to integrate writing/oral communication into the nursing research course, faculty completed a Writing in the Discipline workshop. Then, faculty rearranged research content so two of three hours of class/week were used to discuss principles of nursing research, and one hour of class/week was devoted to written/oral communication content/experiences. During the two hour sessions (up to 64 students) content typical of an undergraduate nursing research course was presented (Research Problems/Questions/Hypotheses, Theoretical Frameworks, Design, Sampling, Data Collection, Reliability/Validity, Data Analysis, Evidence Based Practice). Written/oral communication content was taught during the one hour sessions to smaller groups of students (up to 25), and included APA format; grammar principles: pronoun antecedent, pronoun reference, run-on sentences, coordinating conjunction, prepositions, and commas; plagiarism; paraphrasing; punctuation; clarity of expression: wordiness, active /passive voice; topic/key/concluding sentences; and transitional words. Students took a writing assessment prior to and after this content was presented. Written assignments included critiquing a research study and a ten page review of the literature on a clinical topic of interest. The oral assignment was a ten-minute presentation of their literature review.
Results: Initially, students wondered why written/oral communication content was part of an undergraduate research course. However, as the semester progressed students came to realize it was appropriate to integrate written/oral communication content with research content/assignments. In addition, student mean scores improved in almost half of the areas of the writing assessment and faculty in courses which follow this course noticed improvement in students’ writing/speaking abilities, compared to students who did not have a course that incorporated written/oral communication with research.
Conclusion: Integrating this content into a nursing research course is an appropriate and effective way to improve undergraduate students’ writing/oral communication.
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